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- Hello Moto, from an avid Moto Droid Maxx, DT2, and Z2F owner, who recently gave the Z3 a try, and am sticking with a used Z2F, even now in spring 2019:
You quite blew it on the Z3, please note the following for future Z line design...
1) Shattershield matters: Glass front/back phones are too heavy and fragile. Shattershield phones are the *perfect* weight and balance with protective covers (like the Verizon protector). Z3 is too heavy with a protector, or mod!
2) Front fingerprint sensor is much better than side: One Button Nav rocks with front, *physical* (not touchscreen) sensor, esp. for lock/unlock. Don't worry about cloning Samsung or iPhone bezel designs!! I challenge anyone to nav faster with touchscreen OBN and side sensor on Z3...not possible.
3) Show Me matters: "Hello Moto" is completely useless, duplicates Hey Google, pointlessly. "Show me <app>" very nicely complements Google Assistant, please add it back on Z4.
4) Front LED flash matters: My Z2F nighttime selfies are always far better than my iPhone 8 and X friends'! Brilliant for parties, clubs, night outdoor scenes. Don't give this up!
5) Mods don't matter: Sorry to say, what most of us love about the Z line is its performance, Moto actions/display, and thin and light *form factor*, not its Mods. There are no Mods that don't have better, cheaper standalone alternatives. Give up on Mods, but keep Shattershield size and weight!kbz1960 likes this.04-20-2019 03:25 AMLike 1 - We have no connection to Motorola (Lenovo), and I doubt that many of their employees read the forum (and that, not regularly). I suggest that you email their design department (or their CEO) directly.04-20-2019 06:11 PMLike 0
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2) Front fingerprint sensor is much better than side: One Button Nav rocks with front, *physical* (not touchscreen) sensor, esp. for lock/unlock. Don't worry about cloning Samsung or iPhone bezel designs!! I challenge anyone to nav faster with touchscreen OBN and side sensor on Z3...not possible.
5) Mods don't matter: Sorry to say, what most of us love about the Z line is its performance, Moto actions/display, and thin and light *form factor*, not its Mods. There are no Mods that don't have better, cheaper standalone alternatives. Give up on Mods, but keep Shattershield size and weight!
However I have a handful of mods. The Moto-branded battery mod is truly fantastic. The car dock mod is decent but the mounting system sucks. The concept of speaker mods is awesome, but execution sucked. Having to charge them separately from the phone is ridiculous. I even have the Hassleblad mod and the pictures/video are worse than a modern $100 point-and-click camera, but was $200 MSRP! (got mine on sale for like $50). Above all, though, was the pricing. If each mod were 1/2 its MSRP it would still be overpriced.
If the mod system disappears for the "z4" or whatever the next phone is THIS IS WHY.
FYI i get my phones through work, along with all the mods except the camera. I've purchased a new phone every year for probably 6 years, but the z3 is so awesome i won't mind holding onto it for a while longer if the z line of phones changes dramatically or if the mod ecosystem goes away.05-01-2019 11:40 AMLike 2 - Hi Somnambulator, thanks for your responses.
To clarify, you prefer Moto "One Button Nav" gestures on the Z3 touchscreen bar to those same functions on the Z2 physical sensor? What I noticed is that while I can very quickly and intuitively find the Z2 physical sensor by touch, barely even thinking about it, I had to visually look for the virtual bar on the Z3, which didn't have the same super fast, intuitive feel to me. But perhaps that's something you get used to.
Same holds for on/off using the Z2 front sensor, which feels much more versatile and fast, using either thumb or forefinger. Z3 side sensor is only a forefinger thing. Where I really noticed the impact of this change is when driving, so much easier to quickly (and more safely) unlock with the Z2 front sensor vs. Z3 side sensor, which was often blocked by my mount.05-01-2019 02:29 PMLike 0 -
- RyModerator CaptainI went from Moto Z Force Droid to Moto Z2 Play to Moto Z4.
2) Front fingerprint sensor is much better than side: One Button Nav rocks with front, *physical* (not touchscreen) sensor, esp. for lock/unlock. Don't worry about cloning Samsung or iPhone bezel designs!! I challenge anyone to nav faster with touchscreen OBN and side sensor on Z3...not possible.
One Button Nav is just as good on an all-screen phone though.
5) Mods don't matter: Sorry to say, what most of us love about the Z line is its performance, Moto actions/display, and thin and light *form factor*, not its Mods. There are no Mods that don't have better, cheaper standalone alternatives. Give up on Mods, but keep Shattershield size and weight!J Dubbs likes this.07-30-2019 12:54 PMLike 1 - Re: Shattershield, I meant it matters (to me, at least) as physical protection that really works.
Re: me wanting an X vs. Z, not true, since I still want Z performance and thin/light form factor, which again, I feel is ideal paired with a lightweight case. (I love the black textured kickstand kind.)07-30-2019 01:46 PMLike 0 - RyModerator CaptainRe: Shattershield, I meant it matters (to me, at least) as physical protection that really works.
Re: me wanting an X vs. Z, not true, since I still want Z performance and thin/light form factor, which again, I feel is ideal paired with a lightweight case. (I love the black textured kickstand kind.)
Z performance? Z3 used a "non-current/non-flagship" processor and the Z4 solidified it's place in the midrange.Laura Knotek likes this.07-31-2019 12:51 AMLike 1 - It's more of what the masses want though. As a Z Force Droid owner, it was silly needing to put a screen protector on my phone just so the plastic wouldn't scratch up going in and out of my pocket. In addition to cost-cutting, ShatterShield didn't do enough to continue on in the Z3 and Z4.
Which I think brings us full circle back to my original sentiment regarding why I'm not upgrading from Z2 Force to Z3 or Z4. Not being faster, more durable, lighter, better camera, or easier to use, they offer no clear advantages to me.07-31-2019 03:34 PMLike 0 - Fair enough, I haven't compared, but doubt they're much different in daylight, where Z2 does fine. Z4 likely better in low light, but again, it lost front LED flash which works brilliantly on Z2, and I'm more apt to take low light group selfies (restaurants, parties, etc.) in low light than regular rear-lens photos.
Now, there's yet another potential regression on Z4 camera, if I understand user and review complaints I've read that Portrait mode now requires face detection, so it's no longer possible to do blurred background shots of objects. Is this true? Nearly all my Portrait mode photos are food, flowers, etc.
Perhaps so on Z4, but Z3 benchmarks were clearly worse vs. Z2 Force.07-31-2019 04:23 PMLike 0 - Samsung is just hard to compete with on the flagship tier, through marketing. I don't understand why people so easily spend so crazy much for Samsung phones though, same with iPhones. Business expensed, in many cases? With exception of low light camera performance, Moto Z2 exceeded other brand flagships in multiple ways.08-02-2019 01:23 AMLike 0
- RyModerator CaptainSamsung is just hard to compete with on the flagship tier, through marketing. I don't understand why people so easily spend so crazy much for Samsung phones though, same with iPhones. Business expensed, in many cases? With exception of low light camera performance, Moto Z2 exceeded other brand flagships in multiple ways.
It seems like cameras matter to most folks which is one of the key talking marketing points that the Galaxy S, iPhone, and Pixel compete on.
ShatterShield solved a problem that most iPhone owners could get fixed within an hour with a scratch-prone screen.
iPhone and Galaxy have healthy third-party accessory ecosystems while few companies jumped on Moto Mods.
Unless you had Play variants, significant battery life advantages didn't exist.08-02-2019 03:11 AMLike 0
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